


Twenty Minutes

by kuiske



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Swearing, Wakes & Funerals, author processing personal grief through writing a funeral scene, comic book norse mythology, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:10:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18703897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuiske/pseuds/kuiske
Summary: Steve wanted to glare at her and remind her that the last five years sure hadn’t been full of stoic acceptance on her part either, so she could damn well stop judging and let them do this for her.Yeah, she’d just have to roll her eyes and power through.





	Twenty Minutes

“We have to honour her,” Thor said quietly, staring at his empty hands.

The faint spark of desperate fight in him was all but extinguished. The god who had once filled entire rooms with his mere presence sat on the garden bench looking smaller than ever. 

Defeated.

One hit too many, on top of a _hundred_ that had been too many to bear.

“We’ll do it by bringing everyone back,” Steve replied with strength and resolve he didn’t really feel. “We’ll do it by making it count.”

“ _We_ aren’t doing anything to make it count.” Thor gestured vaguely towards the window. Inside, Tony, Bruce and Rocket were working with the stones. “They are. You, me, _us_ , we are just sitting here. Doing nothing. We have this time, we should use it to send her on her way with honour, in case-”

Thor fell silent, but Steve could hear the rest of it anyway. In case something goes wrong. In case they, too, would have to pay the same price that Natasha had paid.

“I tried to bring her back,” Clint repeated once again, unprompted, his voice breaking. “I walked back there, to the foot of that goddamn cliff so I could bring her home, but she wasn’t there, I couldn’t find her, I saw her there when- and I couldn’t, I couldn’t- some _fucking_ space magic bullshit, I _swear_ I tried...”

“We know.” 

Steve would’ve added that no one blamed him, but he thought that Clint might’ve punched him in the teeth if he’d said that. 

Clint was blaming himself, and Steve knew a thing or two about that.

“We all know war.” Rhodey spoke for the first time in an hour. “We all know- We all know not all funerals have a body. Doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a funeral.”

He looked like those words cost him a great deal.

“How? We don’t-” Steve was hearing the bells that had tolled for his Ma, was tasting the ash and despair and the whiskey that did nothing for him. None of it felt like Natasha. “Do we know any Russian funeral rituals? Something she would’ve wanted?”

Natasha had never said.

“Not really,” Clint laughed, all bitter and wrong. “The Red Room wasn’t really big on anyone believing in anything bigger than them. Wasn’t big on grief, either. Neither was S.H.I.E.L.D. for that matter. Name on the wall if the agency acknowledged you, a pile of burned files if it didn’t. It is what it is. Was.”

Cold. Cold and not right, but somehow better than thinking about military honours and Arlington. Practical. More _her_. But not right.

No one spoke for a while. The Avengers had no rituals. They had never needed them before, no one had ever suggested a funeral for the Vanished. It had been due to shock at first, then denial, then just plain, stubborn refusal to let go. 

Soon there would be no need to let go. They were all coming back soon. 

All except her.

(Please, God, let it work, let them come back, let it not have been for nothing.)

“Do you... Do you think she would mind if we did it my way?” Thor offered hesitantly. “The Asgardian way?”

“A Viking burial?” Rhodey almost smiled. “Where are we going to get a boat?”

Thor stood up and walked to a nearby tree. He laid a hand on it and frowned in concentration, and for a few very long seconds, nothing happened. Then light sparked around his fingers and with a deafening crack a lighting cleaved the tree in two. The smaller half was still standing, smouldering, with a single green branch left on it. Thor grabbed the bigger half and hauled it back to his bench.

“Right here. This will be her ship.”

Steve hadn’t known that Thor was an artist, but as he watched him shape the tree into a miniature version of a dragonship with his knife and little bursts of lightning he couldn’t have called him by any other word. The ship was beautiful even half-finished, a sculpture really, and Steve was reminded of the first time he’d seen Natasha dance, the first time he’d seen Tony’s technical drawings. 

Such talent for beauty they had, his team of fighters.

Steve’s cheeks were wet with tears again.

“So what happens next?”

Steve glanced behind himself. Tony and Bruce were standing by the door and he had no idea how long they’d been there. Rocket had stayed behind with the stones, but he wasn’t working either.

“Is the Gauntlet finished?”

“Lunch break,” Tony shrugged halfheartedly.

“Thor?”

“It is a tradition that a warrior should be buried with her weapons,” Thor explained quietly, never taking his eyes off his work. “Weapons, personal items, anything you wish for her to have. We push the ship out to the water and set it on fire with an arrow, so that it may be carried off to Valhalla. Where the brave may live forever.”

If Thor’s whispered prayer sounded wistful, no one made a mention of it. 

If Clint’s breath hitched in a broken sob, no one mentioned that either. 

They dispersed in silence to find something to bury in her place. Something they wanted her to have.

*

The bottom of the tiny ship was full of flowers; where Bruce had found them, Steve had no idea. Rocket slipped something into the ship and retreated quickly, grabbing a couple of sandwiches on his way out. Steve wasn’t sure if he didn’t want to watch emotional people or if he didn’t want to be seen being emotional, but he suspected it might’ve been a bit of both.

Tony hadn’t been joking about the lunch. He’d recruited Scott to help him in the kitchen and they’d emerged with a plate of peanut butter sandwiches and a tray of those godawful green smoothies that _had_ to be very healthy judging by the taste. They were distributing the food while the rest of them began to place their offerings in the ship. This might have been an Asgardian tradition, but to Steve it felt deeply, viscerally human. The words from his Ma’s funeral tried to whisper in his head, but the breeze from the lake blew them away.

 _For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out._

Gone, just like that, easier than breathing. Overruled by a far older sentiment that here, on this moment, seemed to run bone-deep in all of them.

_I want her to have this. She’s going to need it._

The ship filled slowly with books, knick-knacks, pieces of clothing, even food. 

Thor had carved runes on leftover pieces of wood. Steve was fairly certain that those runes were always used in Asgardian funerals, and he was equally certain that the Cyrillic writing that circled the runes was just for Nat. 

Scott gave the last sandwich to Natasha and Tony triple-checked that the lid on her smoothie was properly fixed before handing it over. Then he pulled a stack of papers out of his pocket and put them on the ship as well. They were blueprints of her weapons and body-armour, both those that Steve had seen her wear and ones that hadn’t even been manufactured yet. On the topmost sheet Tony had written _... et hominum spes fallunt_ in a beautiful cursive Steve had never seen him use before. It had to be an inside joke, though he had no idea what it referred to. He’d have to ask. 

Rhodey didn’t bother with flourishes. He came forward, placed Nat’s communicator carefully on the bed of flowers, and stepped back again. 

Steve hadn’t known what to give. He wanted to get her _back_ , not send her on her way. 

Natasha’s voice in his head hadn’t made it any easier.

_We have what we have while we have it._

Steve’d wanted to glare at her and remind her that the last five years sure hadn’t been full of stoic acceptance on her part either, so she could damn well stop judging and let them do this for her.

Finally he’d pulled a hoodie out of her closet. _His_ hoodie that she’d been stealing from him for years now, no matter how many times he’d fetched it back. 

She clearly wanted it. She could have it now. 

He’d written a note and slipped it in the hoodie’s pocket to hide it, even though it was so tear-stained that he doubted anyone could have read it if they’d tried. But it was the principle of the thing. The note was for her eyes only. 

The bubblegum was nobody’s secret though; Steve tossed the pack on the hoodie and almost expected her hand to emerge and catch it. It was her favourite brand and it had been so hard to come by during their exile, but he’d always tried to keep them stocked up for her. God knows why, she’d regularly threatened to mush the gum into his hair unless he cut it. She’d even carried out her threat on one memorable occasion. 

(Okay, he knew why, the laugh had done them all good and the ponytail _had_ been a bit much.)

_We have what we have while we have it._

He didn’t realise that the strangled laughter belonged to him until everyone turned to stare.

“Nat would be _so_ irritated to see us make such a fuss over this,” Steve managed to choke out.

Clint’s bark of laughter shattered somewhere in the middle.

“If she didn’t want fuss, she shouldn’t have- she shouldn’t’ve... She can damn well put up with it for a while.”

Most of them laughed and all of them were crying now.

Not even half an hour, mere twenty minutes to say proper goodbye, just in case. Yeah, she’d just have to roll her eyes and power through.

Clint was last. They hadn’t discussed it. They hadn’t needed to. Clint was last, because that was how it was supposed to be.

A lock of white-tipped red hair that Steve had seen Clint pull out of Nat’s hairbrush almost strand by stand, the only piece of her they had left to bury. A slightly crumpled and stained drawing dedicated to ‘Auntie Nat’, made by someone very, very young. A wooden woodpecker toy.

They went into the ship and then it was done. Wind rose from nowhere and a current that shouldn’t have existed took the ship and carried it towards the center of the lake.

Clint’s first fire-arrow clattered on the pier two feet away from him and fell in the water with a hiss. He almost dropped the bow as well, his entire body convulsed and a wail like a wounded animal rose from his throat. Steve stepped towards him and he wasn’t the only one, but Clint waved them all back with a feral look in his eyes. A few harsh breaths and he lifted his bow again. The second arrow flew true even though Clint was shooting blind with tears.

The ship burst into flames and they watched it burn in silence.

“Right,” Tony said, because someone had to, and Steve was so grateful it didn’t have to be him. “Let’s go make it count.”


End file.
